


The Long Awaited Spring

by FireEye



Category: Ultima
Genre: F/F, One-Sided Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-25
Updated: 2012-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-22 10:40:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/608933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireEye/pseuds/FireEye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Ice Witch lived above her people, careless and carefree, until a Stranger from Another World arrived and melted her heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Long Awaited Spring

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Roadstergal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roadstergal/gifts).



Had she been but been discovered at the proper age, they might have been sisters in the Art.  As it was, the woman was unkempt and uneducated, and her servants were cut of the same cloth.  A Monitorian by the mark on her face, there was nothing outstanding about her, save that she was – perhaps – blessed with magic, a minor aptitude, slipped through the Magister’s grasp.

But then, Rotoluncia was interested in her.  And if Rotoluncia was interested in her, then so too was Frigidazzi.

So she waited.

Watched.

All the while, tracing her lips with a fingernail.

~*~

The others weren’t Monitorian.

Clearly not Moonshadian.

They could have been Fawnese.

They smiled, they frowned, they laughed, they argued, and they followed the woman like hatchlings following their mother.

At times, the old man would fall behind the others, and the woman would fall back beside him.  Once, she threw an arm around his shoulders as they walked, squeezing him in an affectionate, if somehow melancholy, embrace.  He shooed her away, and she rubbed his shoulder before returning to the front of the line.

A weakness, perchance.  A chink in the armor.

Frigidazzi knew how to exploit such weaknesses, as any Adept would.  Had she but reason to.

~*~

When Filbercio summoned her, she dropped to the floor, spinning on her heel to face them, a dagger poised to throw in one hand, and a mundane spark of fire in the other.  The wild spark in her eyes flickered and faded as she stood.  Closing her hand around and extinguishing the fire, she bowed, a wry smile touching her lips.

Foolish and unlearned, but not a coward.

Gustacio led her to the empty seat beside Frigidazzi, and the ice mage studied the stranger unabashedly, at this near a distance.

Foolish and unlearned, perhaps, but not so hard on the eyes.

The woman – _Avatar_ , Gustacio called her – stared at the wine glass set in front of her, churning it idly between her fingertips.  As Filbercio made his sweeping introductions of the Adepts, Frigidazzi leaned in and whispered, “‘Tis not poisoned, darling.”

Avatar straightened in her seat, the pleasant, wry smile reappearing at the corner of her mouth.  Before the newcoming could answer, Filbercio’s introduction reached Frigidazzi, and she spoke up properly, “Welcome to thee. These cursed teleportation storms have made travel so difficult that we are becoming isolated! It hath disturbed everyone, but it is good to see a new face.”

“Good Mages,” Filbercio spread his arms in a grandiose gesture of gathering their attention, “this is the adventurer from a distant land whose arrival was foretold in our conjurings!”

Avatar rolled her eyes skyward.  Abruptly, she shifted her weight, and downed half the glass of wine in one unsightly gulp.  For a long, silent moment, everyone stared at the stranger in their midst.

At last, Frigidazzi found her voice.  “Could she be responsible for the storms which plague the land? Or for the growing strangenesses which afflict our spellcasting?”

“I hope, my dear, that she is the solution to our problems, rather than the cause...”

“Thou art a fool, MageLord!”  Rotoluncia spat, “Our guest is most certainly a factor in the supernatural disturbances that are threatening our world. Let us question her now!”

Rotoluncia shot to her feet, invoking fire.  Avatar, too, stood, throwing her hands out against the inferno.  The explosion curved around her, scorching the table, the surrounding chairs, and the carpet at their feet.

“Stop this!” Gustacio shouted, invoking, “ _Contra Flam!_ ”

The sputtering fires died around them, along with a handful of candleflames and torches.  Frigidazzi sat, frozen in place, as the other Adepts raged in argument.  Avatar stood still, shoulders slumped, yet calm amid the chaos.  Spots of black ash smudged her arms and her clothes.

Gustacio may have intervened, but Avatar had taken the brunt of the magic, and turned it.  More, she had reached out along the threads and shielded Frigidazzi herself from Rotoluncia’s unfocused blast.

Not everyone would be so kind, certainly not on a stranger’s behalf.

The shock of it shook her to the core, and thoughts of power came second.

~*~

 _Avatar_ was not her name.  It was something different, something more complex, like a word of power.

A Vessel.

Hero from a Distant Land.

 _Avatar_.

 _The_ Avatar.

But no one said her name, and Frigidazzi didn’t know what else to call her.  The lack of knowing gnawed at her from inside.

~*~

She felt Rotoluncia’s death.

Throwing off her thin layer of blankets, she rushed to her mirror, startling the goblin sleeping in the corner.  Frost grew across the glass from her fingertips as she leaned into it, unsteady, and the vision came into focus.

The red witch lay on the other side of the glass, sightless eyes open.  Swallowing her revulsion, Frigidazzi pulled the focus back, watching the room from without.  The Avatar crouched above her, sword cast aside, searching Rotoluncia’s pockets, single-handed, with a weary desperation.  Her clothing was burned, she kept one charred arm snug to her side.

The Avatar had taken on the Red Witch and lived.  She had faced an Adept – without magic, by the looks of it – and come out alive.

She pulled a key from Rotoluncia’s robes.  Only one of her minions stood beside her – the large one, with the knight’s bearing, but as the vision shifted to follow the Avatar, she found the other two.  The old man stood by a locked cell, clasping the hands of the third within the cell.  Their hands parted, and the old man moved aside as the Avatar hurried to unlock the door.  She shoved the door open, and she and the woodsman fell into one another’s arms, into a fierce embrace.

Frigidazzi sucked in a breath.

Lovers, perchance?

 _No_.

Something different; something deeper.

A longing stirred within her; Frigidazzi ached to know such familiarity.

Beyond the glass, the Avatar paused over Rotoluncia, and spoke to the knight.  He frowned deeply, but stooped to lift the body, following the Avatar as they climbed the stairs, into an cottage above.  They arranged her on a bed, and the Avatar reached to close the witch’s eyes, lips moving in a whisper.

No love was lost between them, and yet...

Rotoluncia made a foolish mistake.  Frigidazzi knew in her heart that she might have made the same mistake, taking the Avatar for a simple mundane.

Taking the Avatar for granted.

She watched as the company left the abode, reaching starlight upon an island beach.  There, around a fire built of a chair, the woodsman and the old man tended their companion’s wounds with peculiar tenderness.  The Avatar winced as they bound her arm, but grinned throughout, all the while they exchanged words.

Frigidazzi stumbled back from the mirror, its surface iced over.

She had felt Rotoluncia’s death.  There was an aching hole in her heart where Celennia used to be.  She hadn’t cared when they were here.  Why did she care about them now, now that they were gone beyond her reach?

What had they become?

~*~

In the ice, she saw the Avatar open the door to her laboratory, as the door to the laboratory opened, revealing the Avatar.

“Hi.”  The woman smiled warmly and rubbed her hands against her arms.  “Your, um... goblin out there?  Suggested I could come in – well, kinda, she signed me in this direction – for, uh...” The Avatar paused to blow on her hands, shivering in her summer vest.  “I was wondering if you might allow me to transcribe some of your spells.  If I can afford it.”

An Adept would use such an opportunity wisely, for advantage or coin.

Frigidazzi felt no need for coin.

After what happened to Rotoluncia, taking advantage was simply unwise.

~*~

After a polite – and dare she presume, _pleasant_ – conversation, Frigidazzi had sent her away, to return that night, and resumed her scrying.

The Avatar spent the remainder of the day in the companionship of her knight.  At first, they loitered, speaking softly to one another in soft, somber tones.  Then Avatar cracked a grin, to which the knight begrudgingly smiled in return.

In the late afternoon light, they sparred on the grass, near the Seminarium.

The Avatar lost the match.  Hauled from the grass, stained and no doubt bruised, she clapped the knight on the shoulder – no pride lost at having lost.  They began their exercise again.

Such a foolish thing to do – training the body, instead of the mind.

Foolish and beautiful.

~*~

Years of politics had frozen her heart.

The wise thing to do was to enrapture the Avatar, cloud her senses and strike while she was unawares.  The threat would be eliminated, and she would, mercifully, enjoy her last hours in existence.

Yet in the end, she couldn’t bring herself to it.

Not when the Avatar brought three armed ruffians to her bedchambers, and Frigidazzi feared she had made Rotoluncia’s mistake.  Not when the Avatar shrugged, brow furrowed, and foolishly sent them away as Frigidazzi asked.

The Avatar stood before her without fear or deference.  As though they were old friends.  She felt like an old friend, familiar, yet weathered and returned from a long, long journey.

Attraction pooled into desire.

Through Frigidazzi’s tumultuous line of thought – of confession, of _love_ , newly discovered as though she were a mageling new to power and to politics – the Avatar watched her every move, and kept her distance.  A wild creature, poured into the shape of a woman.

And when Frigidazzi leaned in to kiss her, she pulled away.  Hands tucked into her belt, the Avatar ducked her head; her shoulders trembled with silent laughter.

“I’m sorry,” the woman said.  There was that wry smile again, and her eyes moved as though she might have said more.  But abruptly, the Avatar drew two daggers, and it was only a moment, a mere moment, later, Frigidazzi felt the aether shift.

So ensorcelled was she that the interruption took her by surprise.

The Avatar stood between Frigidazzi and Filbercio, as though a simple dagger could threaten the MageLord of Moonshade.  She relaxed, ever slightly, as Filbercio confronted Frigidazzi herself.

“What dost thou have to say in thy defense, _cur_?”

One brow arched in humble defiance.

“I’m leaving.”

The Avatar turned on her heel to go.  As though it would be simple.  Just like that.

Filbercio threw a spell, freezing her in place.

“Not so fast, peasant! I have a special punishment reserved for those who dare to play games with my mistresses....”

The Avatar seemed untouched by his threat.  She tested the magical bonds, face contemplative, as a child with a puzzle toy.  She ought to have been terrified, and Frigidazzi was terrified on her behalf.  Before she could stop herself, the ice mage found herself clutching at her lover’s robes, begging for mercy.

A show of weakness.

If anything, it only served to make Filbercio angrier.  His magic engulfed them, and the world twisted and fell out from underfoot.

~*~

She didn’t want to watch the trial.

She didn’t want to attend.

She knew what the verdict would be.

She felt all wrong.

Like frost.

Melting.

~*~

For all her long life, Frigidazzi had played at emotion, while nurturing apathy.  An ambitious Mage could do no different.

She sat in the cold of her laboratory, and for once the cold did not touch her.  It did not comfort her.  The Avatar was alive; no doubt she would survive, for a little while.

But no one escaped Freedom.

Frigidazzi had wasted enough time.

And she was terrified.

~*~

She sought out the old man, first.

She found him upon a bench in the Seminarium, entertaining the children with music and song.  She stood in the doorway, listening with rapt attention.

Did they know whom the song painted, in heroic overtures?

The old man saw her, and faltered, recovering his tune swiftly.  He watched her askance, and at length nodded her inside.

Frigidazzi turned away.

What use would an old bard be?

~*~

The knight, she found in the tavern, seated at a table near the wall, with the Flindo’s hired help poised on his lap and a drunken grin on his face.  Anger rose in Frigidazzi, and she stormed towards the table.  Knowing her place, Bucia ran.  Bereft of her company, the knight studied the composition of his tankard, all at once sullen and sour.

Frigidazzi leaned on the table.  When at last she found her words, they were clipped.  “I wish to speak to thee.”

“The price of thy company is steep, Lady,” the man replied into his ale, without slurring as she might have expected.  “I hope thou didst make it worth her while.”

Her hands curled into fists upon the table.  Her first impulse was to freeze him alive.  Drunk as he was, the lout would never have seen it coming.

But she couldn’t.

She would not be Rotoluncia.

 _Never again_.

“Thou must help her.”

He snorted.

“With thy help, no doubt?”

“Yes.”

He laughed.

She shoved off the table, and spoke a word in anger.  Her dress rustled as she swirled about, leaving him with ice in place of ale.

 _How_?  How could they sit by and do nothing?

~*~

The woodsman found her.

Her dress tangled on the brambles of the inner forest, and when Frigidazzi reached to untangle it, his hand was already there, pulling the heavy cloth free of the brambles.  They stood together, and the man stepped back, giving her space.

“Worth nothing, the Avatar’s trust in ye,” she said, despair clouding her mind.  “Thy master hath been cast in darkness, and ye scatter to the wind.”

“She is not our master.”  The woodsman corrected softly, his voice a mere a rustle in the leaves.  “She is our-... she is my friend.”

“ _Friend_ ,” Frigidazzi spat.  “Without thee, she hath no hope.”

“We do the Avatar no honor by rushing to her aid,” he said.  “Would she fall to sacrifice herself to save us, our efforts would be for naught.”

“Dost none of ye care?” She asked the empty forest.  “Dost none of ye not lov-...” She paused, and stepped forward.  Daring.  Close enough to feel his warmth.  “Dost thou not love her?”

He stared down at her, unflinching.  “We all do.”

Frustration welled in her.  Frigidazzi shoved into him, and tangled in his arms as his arms enclosed her.

“How darest thou?” she demanded, and her fist pounded his shoulder.  “How _couldest_ thou?”

His arms tightened around her, and he held her as she trembled in anger.  In grief.  “Faith, milady.”

He held her gently, and her tears froze on her cheeks.

~*~

The Avatar haunted her dreams.

Alive.

Dead.

Undead.

Alive.

Beautiful and terrible.  Seductive and smiling.

With the eyes of a serpent.

 _Faith_ , he said.

And in her dreams, the Avatar fought Lorthondo.

The Avatar fought Lorthondo and won.

Throwing off her thin layer of blankets, she rushed to her drawers, startling the goblin sleeping in the corner.  Kneeling at her table, Frigidazzi took to quill and parchment.  She poured her heart into script, on faith.  On love.

~*~

The Avatar was gone, free and beyond the reach of the fickle whims of the mages of Moonshade.  Into danger, no doubt, and do doubt capable of facing all that faced her.  Frigidazzi hadn’t spoken to Filbercio since the trial.  Of the Adepts, she hadn’t spoken to any of them, and none of them, likely, noticed her withdrawal.

She wasn’t ready.

They would see her as mad.

She would never be ready.

They had to understand.

She had to make them see.

They could be more than they were.

 

**_end_ **

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize if this isn't quite what you were hoping for: I'd never thought on Frigidazzi much and I'm not sure if I pinged her character or not. I saw your prompt on the challenge list and figured I could write a treat at least, to tide you over until someone more capable comes along. (And then it ate my brain).
> 
> Uh. Not straight-up Av/Frigidazzi, I'm afraid. The Avatar's reasons for turning her down are supposed to be ambiguous, though - that is, she may easily be flattered and simply have no Time for Love or she might be interested-but-monogamous and not want to be sharing with Filbercio.
> 
> I also took a couple of liberties, as you may have noticed, most visible perhaps being the Avatar having magic at the banquet. I figure with someone as learned in spell systems as the Avatar, she might have a few magic tricks up her sleeves even without a spellbook. And it offers a nice little Knight/Princess moment. :3
> 
> LONG ENDNOTES SHORT~ I hope you enjoyed this and I hope you get more Frigidazzi in the future, whether I end up writing it or not. ;)


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